I’ve shared before that one of my fave subreddits is Female Fashion Advice. I’m older than what I think would be a typical subscriber, which makes some of the discussions less relevant to my interests, but I like the variety of backgrounds and aesthetic preferences because it exposes me to new ideas and new ways of looking at fashion all the time. Sometimes, even to a proverbial paradigm shift.
This comment proved to be something of the latter. The idea of identifying the different facets of my style as individual “characters” – each with their own defining characteristics – was immediately intriguing. The OP’s list of characters really spoke to me as well. I started thinking about what mine would be, and the exercise quickly proved to be extremely fruitful … and pretty effortless. Things just sort of came together – everything from my style preferences to my wardrobe palette.
Like the OP, I also ended up with 4 characters: two for work, two for off-duty (mostly). Each duo essentially represents a masculine and feminine take on a particular aesthetic. I am going to write a separate post about each one but, first, a few words about some other pertinent details.
Colour Palette
My palette has remained pretty constant over the last couple of years, but I did make a couple of small tweaks as part of this process of re-imagining my closet.
First, having recently acquired a cognac bag, I realized that it’s a nice, softer alternative to black as a core/outfit-grounding neutral. Black is always going to be a staple in my closet – at least one of my style personas leans heavily on black – but I have been drawn to softer, warmer, lower contrast colours lately. So my neutrals have mellowed to dove gray, ivory, and cognac (along with grey). I’m also moving away from navy; I like midnight blue (especially in velvet), but navy feels too drab.
Second, I have decided to swap out some of my core colours. I chose plum (and related shades of warm purple) over burgundy, and sage (muted green) over jasper (dark green). I also decided to forego the bright, almost-cobalt blue that was a long-standign favourite. I still adore the colour, but it’s too contrast-y for the rest of my wardrobe. I only had a couple of pieces in this shade left in my closet, and I said a (reluctant) goodbye to them recently.
The balance of my core colours stayed the same: mauve/blush, mustard yellow, olive, (muted) blue.
Kibbe Type
I think I’ve written about this before, but my face and my body are somewhat at odds when it comes to Kibbe Types (Classic, Dramatic, Romantic, etc.). I have an hourglass/slight pear shape body, which looks great in form-fitting, waist-accentuating, very femme clothing. (NB: Is it weird to talk about my body in the third person? Yes? No? Let’s pretend that didn’t just happen.) My face, however, is quite angular, with strong features that are not particularly feminine. Dramatic haircuts — blunt bobs, pixies, etc. — suit my face in a way that more traditionally femme ones (long hair, soft waves) don’t. So there is a definite disconnect there.
As I get older, I find that I want to focus more on my face, and less on my body. I am leaning away from things that might be seen as traditionally welcoming/inviting of the external (male) gaze, if that makes sense. That’s not intended as a critique of any particular style; I’m past the stage of giving a s**t if someone dresses for men, or for women, or for whomever. Everyone should do whatever makes them happy.
Anyway, as will become apparent as I go through my style characters in future posts, my aesthetic is now more closely aligned with my facial Kibbe type. As my current bob is also on the same page, I feel on top of my game.
Wardrobe Reset
After deciding on my style characters, I went through my clothing inventory and tagged each item as belonging to one or more character; there was actually a fair bit of overlap. I did this for everything in my closet, including shoes and bags. The results were very enlightening. Although I had already pared down my wardrobe a lot (down to about 150 items), I found quite a few things that didn’t belong. These were, by and large, items I had already “flagged” to myself as candidates for purging, but which I could not bring myself to part with before. This gave me the last, much-needed push to move them out of my closet. Some went into the basement closet purgatory, some just went straight out (donated, swapped, or listed on the ThriftRats sho).
April is the first month when I will be starting to implement my new approach, so stay tuned to see the outfits and my discussion of each style character.
Kibble’s flamboyant gamine is actually exactly how you describe, a juxtaposition of opposites. I find a lot of people who are this archetype try to resist it, because of it’s quirkiness, or they feel like you need to be really short and waifish when that is more soft gamine. Flamboyant gamines are more medium sized and angular but they can have some curves too. It covers a broad range of styles so I’m kind of jealous!
I don’t think I’m gamine because I have always had a “mature” face. Like, I looked 25 when I was 16. My age is now finally catching up to my face, lol!
That makes sense. I’ve been really enjoying your slightly more punk looks – the leather pants and slouchy sweaters. They seem to really suit you.
I’ve been feeling a little bored with my wardrobe and interested in more casual clothing/less femme but I’m in a career transition moment and don’t want to make decisions until I figure out what the future looks like.
I really love the subreddit too! The discussions there are often very interesting, even if a lot of people have different tastes and not everything that comes up is directly relevant to me.
Just because my workplace dress code is so different from what I’d prefer to wear when I’m not going to the office, I end up having at least two “characters”, one for work, and one for the rest of the time. (I probably have two work characters actually, one the super-conservative business formal look for court and then my day-to-day comfy business casual look.)
My off-duty look has evolved a lot over the years: I used to like a sort of 2008-2011-ish J.Crew look, with a lot of statement jewelry and bright colors and prints. I still like the idea of some of those elements (bright colors, prints), but it’s hard to find new items that work for me, so as old items from that genre get worn out, there’s nothing to replace them. Plus, I’ve gotten attached to the minimalist aesthetic (some of the clothes are so comfy).
Very interesting to read and I look forward to the character reveal 🙂
And glad to hear that it helped you with the final closet purge.
I was talking to some friends IRL and they were pretty confused still. I think it will be more clear once I do the individual character/avatar posts.